He was only accustomed to baby-faced Hindu women of the "langorous lily" type, who hung on his every word--the mute slaves of his jaded passions.

"This one is a tigress!" he sighed, as he fled from the Club.
"Ah! My lady is a bit rattled," mused Hawke as the carriage sped along.
"Now is the time to catch her off her guard." And so he made himself sleek and patient, with the surface varnish of his "society manner," when Jules Victor, with semi-hostile eyes, ushered him into the presence of Alixe Delavigne, still in her robes of "visitation splendor." "What is this devil's work done in my absence?
This spiriting away of Nadine!" cried Alixe, grasping Hawke's wrist with a nervous clasp, which made the strong man wince.

"This juggling in my absence ?" Her eyes were sternly fixed on him in dawning suspicions.
"Madame," calmly said Alan Hawke, "if you had trusted to me, this would not have happened.

But you have chosen to make an enigma of yourself, from the first.

I am not tired of your moods, but I am of your cold disdain, your contemptuous slighting of my useful mental powers.